'The Interview,' Greeted By Sold-Out Shows, May Net Millions This Weekend : The Two-WayThe North-Korea-infuriating comedy received a limited release on Christmas, mostly in independent theaters, after hacker-threatened Sony Pictures first pulled the film then made it available.

Patrons queue up to see "The Interview" Thursday at the the Cinefamily at Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles.
Richard Vogel/AP
hide caption

toggle caption

Richard Vogel/AP

Patrons queue up to see "The Interview" Thursday at the the Cinefamily at Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles.

Richard Vogel/AP

Lawyer Derek Karpel thought The Interview would be a horrible movie after reading some of the reviews, but told reporter Julie Walker that his opinion was a bit different after he saw the film on Thursday at Cinema Village in New York City.

"It's not a great movie — this is not Kubrick, this is a stupid Seth Rogen/James Franco movie," he said. "With that said, they were still very funny. I thought it was well done."

Web developer Nick Doiron, who was at the same screening, said he thought that the film lived up to the hype, and that the audience seemed to agree.

"People were laughing from the beginning through to the end, and then people applauded at the end," Doiron said.

The Times also reports that the film's co-directors, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, made a surprise appearance at one Los Angeles showing. Rogen took the opportunity to speak to the crowd:

"You are the best. We thought this might not happen at all. ... If it wasn't for theaters like this, and people like you guys, this literally would not be ... happening."

The Interview was the target earlier this month of what the FBI says were North Korean hackers, who broke into Sony Pictures' computer systems, stole its employees personal data and released some embarrassing emails to the public.

The hackers followed up by threatening violence at the movie's Christmas Day showings, and after theaters began canceling showtimes Sony decided to pull the film from distribution, which would have put The Interview on as many as 3,000 screens Thursday.

Th cancellation prompted an outcry that went all the way up to President Obama and turned the film into a free-speech cause celebre, and Sony eventually backtracked on the film's withdrawal, allowing theaters to show it Thursday if they wanted and arranging for online distribution of the film that began late Wednesday.